Characters: Noah, his wife, their 3 sons, their wives, 2 of many 4-legged animals, 2 of many crawling animals, dove

Props: “olive leaf” on branch

Narrator: Long ago, God looked at the world and saw that people had become very bad. In their minds there were only evil thoughts. God felt sorry that he had created humans. So He said, “I will eliminate from the earth the human beings that I have created, for I am sorry that I have created them. Along with them, I will wipe out all the animals and creeping things and birds of the air.”

But when He looked at the earth, God also saw one righteous man. His name was Noah. He was 600 years old. God called to Noah and said to him, “I have decided to finish all humans, animals, and birds, because the world is full of violence they have caused. Now I am going to destroy them all, and the earth as well.”

Then God gave Noah a way to save himself and his family from the destruction of the earth. God told him to build a very large boat, called an “ark.” God told him exactly how to make it—of a certain kind of wood, with rooms inside, three storeys high, a roof, and a big door on one side.

God said to Noah, “I am going to bring a great flood of water over the earth. Everything on the earth will die. But I will make a covenant with you—you shall come into the ark with your wife, and your sons, and their wives. And you shall bring 2 of every animal, and every creeping thing, and every kind of bird. Bring one male and one female of every living being. Take them onto the ark with you, to keep them alive. Also take every kind of food with you and store it on the ark. That will be food for you and for all the animals.”

Noah did everything just as God had commanded him. He and his sons built the Ark [they do that] and he filled it with food [he and his sons do that] and then they brought all the animals and creeping things and birds, two of each kind [they gather the animals].

Then God said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your family, for I have seen that now only you are righteous among all the people. Take all the animals and creeping things and birds with you, a male and female of every kind. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. Every living thing that I have made I will destroy.”

Noah took all his family and settled them on the ark. [he does that]

Then he took all the animals and settled them on the ark [he does that]

Then he took all the creeping things and settled them on the ark [he does that]

Then he took all the birds and settled them on the ark [he does that]

All of them were on the ark, so that they would escape the flood.

After seven days, God sent the rain. He opened all the windows of the heavens, and the rain fell and fell for 40 days and 40 nights. There was so much water that the boat started floating. The water became so deep that it covered all the earth. Then it covered even the tops of the tallest mountains. Everything that was living on the earth died. Only Noah was left, and with him, all his family and all the creatures that were with him in the ark. The great flood covered the whole earth for 150 days.

But God had not forgotten Noah and the ark, and all the creatures that were on it. He stopped the rain, and made a great wind blow over the earth. Slowly the waters went down. At last the ark came to rest on the top of mountains called Ararat. Slowly, slowly the waters receded.

Noah then sent a dove to see if she could find any dry place on the earth where they could live. First she flew and flew, but couldn’t find any place to land, so she came back to Noah. [she does that]

Noah waited for 7 days. Then he sent the dove out again. [He does that]. In the evening, the dove came back to Noah with the branch of an olive bush in her beak [she does that]. Thus Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth.

Noah waited and waited until the earth was dry.

Then God said to Noah, “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you—birds and animals and creeping things—so that they may multiply on the earth.” So every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out of the ark. [they do so]

Noah made a sacred fire and made offerings to God in gratitude [he does that.] When God smelled the offerings, he was happy, and he said, “I will never again curse the earth because of evilness that is in humans from their childhood, nor will I ever again destroy every living creature. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

As a sign of the covenant between God and all living creatures, God made a rainbow in the sky. God said, “When the rainbow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and all living beings on the earth.”

[Source: Holy Bible, Genesis 6-9]